High fares - The issue that won't go away

[island]

This reads like a bit of a weird comment - it seems to rather write off from rail travel those age 30-59 who don't travel with their 'family', nor regularly with a specific other person, are not an ex-service person, do not have a qualifying disability, or are not travelling wholly within the 'wider south-east' (ex-NSE area).

FWIW, I'm not particularly a proponent of a 'national railcard' - I can see both arguments for and against.

I am not sure expecting a group of people to pay full fare constitutes 'writing them off'.

 

[yorksrob]

Cheap fares are no good if the service isn't any good though. And subsidy might be a result of higher taxes.

I wonder how much money suspending the fuel duty freeze for just one year would raise - maybe enough to make train fares significantly more affordable ?

Political choices.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2025 ==

Late to the party here, but a few thoughts…




Two things here. The demographic market segment of people who wish to travel by rail for their usual journeys and are not eligible for a railcard is frankly rather small (and getting smaller).

Second, why would the railway reduce fares on what is the highest revenue half day of the week? (Friday pm)

If its that small and diminishing, why not bite the bullet and close the gap. The argument that because people are part of a diminishing minority, they should be satisfied and put up with it, doesn't seem particularly convincing to me. If the demographic without access to a railcard is so small, clearly its not going to cost the earth to close it.

In terms of Friday, I'm one of the few who go into the office and the trains around the peak are noticeably quieter. I suspect Friday mornings do well because of lots of people doing leisure activities and travelling off peak. Why not do something to make life easier for passengers for a change.

Three very broad reasons:

1) they run a much less frequent or useful service
2) they pay their staff significantly less
3) both.

In terms of 1, I'm not convinced that that's the case with Holland, Germany, Switzerland etc.

This is the nub of it. I too wanted an end to the disruption. The price was an increase in the salary bill of around £150m, with no productivity benefit as part of the deal. Leaving aside opinions on whether that is right or wrong, it is a material increase in the cost base of the industry, and it has to be paid for. As we know there are only two* sources of income for the railway - farepayers and tax payers.

*and property income, albeit most of that comes from passengers too!

Yes, it may be the case that drivers etc are paid more over here (you can hardly avoid it if you introduce a system where competing companies can poach them from eachother).

I come back to my point about the fuel duty freeze. These are all political choices.

Thinking about it, the surefire way to increase productivity of guards and drivers is to have longer trains....

Yes, this involves some capital spending, but capital spending is more acceptable.

 

[Harpo]

Paying ludicrous pay increases that some of us could only dream about is stupid, but I wouldn't have expected anything else from Labour.

Withholding pay rises during periods of high inflation and holding a gun to peoples’ heads to try and steal their hard-earned terms and conditions is also stupid, but I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Tories.

 

[williamn]

I’d say the three main complaints about the railways are cost, reliability and overcrowding.

Cutting fares substantially (which I can’t see happening) is only going to make the last thing worse as I can’t see any magical way to increase capacity.

 

[yorksrob]

Which means all of us for more than half our lives, and many of us for rather more than that.
Exception: you arrive in GB aged 30, live outside NSE, always travel solo, and depart (in one or other sense) before you turn 60.

Portugal is the only one of those with affordable fares for occasional travellers.

Interesting point about Portugal. Do the others have anything equivalent to our longish distance anytime fares, I wonder ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting point about Portugal. Do the others have anything equivalent to our longish distance anytime fares, I wonder ?

All the Germanic railways have walk up Anytime type fares, though those in Germany differ by day of the week (but not time of day) and are sold as singles only.

ICE pricing isn't hugely different from UK long distance pricing. The "Flexpreis" is generally a bit lower though. Though even in the UK that depends - an Anytime Single from London to Edinburgh costs a very similar price to London to Manchester. Clearly one of those is a bit high but the other is just utterly ridiculous. Done on distance compared to Edinburgh the London to Manchester Anytime Single would be about £100 which isn't that unreasonable.

 

[weeklycommuter]

I think the question is more, how do our neighbours on the continent seem to manage to have affordable fares - do they have higher subsidies than us, in which case we need to ask ourselves as a nation whether affordable train services are actually worth paying for as a social good. Alternatively, if they have a good, affordable service with lower fares, what are we doing wrong.

Three very broad reasons:
1) they run a much less frequent or useful service
2) they pay their staff significantly less
3) both.

Do they have to pay train leasing companies for use of the rolling stock or do they own the rolling stock?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do they have to pay train leasing companies for use of the rolling stock or do they own the rolling stock?

Generally, but not always, it is owned.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The price was an increase in the salary bill of around £150m, with no productivity benefit as part of the deal.

The pay deal was significantly below inflation. So there’s your “productivity benefit”, the staff are now paid less in real terms than they were before.

I’ll bet every other supplier to the industry had an inflation clause in their contract.

 

[yorksrob]

I suppose there's also an element of whether someone is a current passenger or someone who has been deterred from travelling by higher fares

The Government seems to be saying that they want the service improvement. I do think that they need to look at value for money for passengers as well for the policy to truly succeed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 May 2025 ==



That is the sort of reduction that railcards provide !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 May 2025 ==



Indeed. I think a poster on another thread posted that given that the level of subsidy we have already, the additional subsidy provide some sort of a fares reduction would be quite small in comparison.

I am not sure expecting a group of people to pay full fare constitutes 'writing them off'.

It certainly constitutes that group of people getting the crappy end of the stick.

I'm amazed its not more of a political issue frankly. Perhaps all the journo's are motorists.

 

[talldave]

Withholding pay rises during periods of high inflation and holding a gun to peoples’ heads to try and steal their hard-earned terms and conditions is also stupid, but I wouldn’t have expected anything else from Tories.

Fortunately as I didn't vote for either party I can be scathing about both of them. The pay award would have been equivalent to a couple of hours of putting the country on furlough in 2020 because of a cough. But, since most politicians are talentless incompetents who couldn't get a job in the real world, we just have to sit and watch as they bankrupt our country.

The only positive about 2020 was that the trains were clean. Sadly we're back to normal filth levels now - another incentive to use the car .

 

[baz962]

No one mentioned lower pay. Paying ludicrous pay increases that some of us could only dream about is stupid, but I wouldn't have expected anything else from Labour.

Wasn't ludicrous though was it . We hadn't had a payrise since 2020 and taking into account compounding , it was little over 3% for each year.

 

[Falcon1200]

I wonder how much money suspending the fuel duty freeze for just one year would raise - maybe enough to make train fares significantly more affordable ?

Political choices.

What political party is going to suggest raising petrol prices in order to lower train fares? I would think, given that far more people would be adversely affected than would benefit, none, ever! And anyway, should additional funds be raised by such a measure, the railway would not be first, or anywhere near first, to gain.

 

[yorksrob]

What political party is going to suggest raising petrol prices in order to lower train fares? I would think, given that far more people would be adversely affected than would benefit, none, ever! And anyway, should additional funds be raised by such a measure, the railway would not be first, or anywhere near first, to gain.

As usual, the motorist block holds the political class in its thrall.

They've had a decade or more of freezes while passengers have had relentless increases. It's about time there was some fairness.

 

[Falcon1200]

As usual, the motorist block holds the political class in its thrall.

Perhaps, but the 'motorist block' is a huge proportion of the voting population. Far greater than the 'train passenger block'.

 

[fairlie]

Perhaps, but the 'motorist block' is a huge proportion of the voting population. Far greater than the 'train passenger block'.

I also think most people think train companies control the price of train fares while they know it's the government that controls fuel duty so the government doesn't get (so much of) the blame when rail fares rise.

 

[ivorytoast28]

Perhaps, but the 'motorist block' is a huge proportion of the voting population. Far greater than the 'train passenger block'.

Which nicely correlates with those not elible for a railcard being the ages making up the majority of those that vote

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps, but the 'motorist block' is a huge proportion of the voting population. Far greater than the 'train passenger block'.

The motorist issue will need to be dealt with in some form, popular or not, because the rise of EVs is making fuel duty incomes reduce significantly. It is impossible for there not to be an unpopular decision - it'll either be introducing a replacement (e.g. road pricing), a significant double figure percentage on income tax and/or VAT, or having to seriously cut public services (e.g. Serpell/NHS abolition/introduction of a separate health insurance payment) because of the massive amount of tax revenue lost.

I wouldn't want to be the Government that has to deal with this as they're unlikely to ever win an election again! But it will have to be dealt with at some point.

 

[cactustwirly]

This is a false equivalence; very many people don't take the train because it's much cheaper to drive.

I won't dissect the takeaway curry comparison as it's so off topic, but let's just say it's about as opposite a comparison as it's possible to get!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2025 ==


I agree with you, from an ideological perspective.

However the Government is unwilling to fund the reduction in price by Anytime ticket holders with taxpayers cash.

Indeed the DfT policy/aspiration appears to be to abolish all walk up fares except Anytime, as currently being trialled by LNER

If you're a single person with a Railcard then the train is basically in line with driving, unless you're traveling on a very expensive Cross Country or LNER ticket

However if there is a group of people, like a family, then driving becomes a lot more cost effective

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you're a single person with a Railcard then the train is basically in line with driving, unless you're traveling on a very expensive Cross Country or LNER ticket

However if there is a group of people, like a family, then driving becomes a lot more cost effective

Which isn't really that much of a problem, because a fully loaded family car is both environmentally and road-space efficient (I seem to recall that per seat a medium family EV is better carbon-wise than a fully loaded Voyager). Arguably the railway should be concentrating on going after the single travellers as these are the most harmful to the environment when driving.

 

[Joe Paxton]

[...] The demographic market segment of people who wish to travel by rail for their usual journeys and are not eligible for a railcard is frankly rather small (and getting smaller).

This reads like a bit of a weird comment - it seems to rather write off from rail travel those age 30-59 who don't travel with their 'family', nor regularly with a specific other person, are not an ex-service person, do not have a qualifying disability, or are not travelling wholly within the 'wider south-east' (ex-NSE area).
[...]

I am not sure expecting a group of people to pay full fare constitutes 'writing them off'.

OK, I'll rephrase - it just reads as being rather dismissive of that "demographic market segment of people [...who] are not eliogible for a railcard [...]".

 

[Indigo Soup]

I assume you're considering the full costs of car ownership. Most people won't do that, bills soon get forgotten and there's a big psychological element with costing driving - the act of travel is separated from paying for travel, therefore most people underprice or even consider a journey to be free.

An awful lot of those 'full costs' are fixed as soon as the decision to own a car is made, unless you have it on a lease that includes servicing and insurance.

I wonder how much money suspending the fuel duty freeze for just one year would raise - maybe enough to make train fares significantly more affordable ?

Several billion pounds. Resetting it to 2010 levels plus inflation (politically impossible of course) would be worth £15-£20 billion. It wouldn't all go on rail fares, of course.

 

[cactustwirly]

Especially compared to the (perceived) inexpensive of car travel.


I assume you're considering the full costs of car ownership. Most people won't do that, bills soon get forgotten and there's a big psychological element with costing driving - the act of travel is separated from paying for travel, therefore most people underprice or even consider a journey to be free.

Sure I'll add an extra couple of pence to cover the wear and tear on my tyres and brakes.

If I drive to the shops, the journey is so short that it is basically free, the extra cost is barely noticeable

 

[Bletchleyite]

I assume you're considering the full costs of car ownership. Most people won't do that, bills soon get forgotten and there's a big psychological element with costing driving - the act of travel is separated from paying for travel, therefore most people underprice or even consider a journey to be free.

In reality most people consider fixed costs (purchase and servicing as well as non-mileage-based repairs, tax and insurance) to be the cost of membership of the "I own a car" club. The variable costs are mostly just fuel and a small amount for brake and tyre replacement.

Insurance and servicing can technically vary by mileage but they don't significantly for most users up to average-ish mileages.

It's a fallacy to suggest that a per-mile model is the only one that should be applied as a comparison. Do people work out Railcards on a per mile basis? I bet most don't.

 

[yorksrob]

Arguably the railway should be concentrating on going after the single travellers as these are the most harmful to the environment when driving.

Who are also the most likely not to be eligible for a railcard of course !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2025 ==

The motorist issue will need to be dealt with in some form, popular or not, because the rise of EVs is making fuel duty incomes reduce significantly. It is impossible for there not to be an unpopular decision - it'll either be introducing a replacement (e.g. road pricing), a significant double figure percentage on income tax and/or VAT, or having to seriously cut public services (e.g. Serpell/NHS abolition/introduction of a separate health insurance payment) because of the massive amount of tax revenue lost.

I wouldn't want to be the Government that has to deal with this as they're unlikely to ever win an election again! But it will have to be dealt with at some point.

Ultimately some sort of road pricing will need to come in in place of it.

I get why electric vehicles were incentivised, however it was always going to be a sticky wicket once take up reached a certain point.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2025 ==

An awful lot of those 'full costs' are fixed as soon as the decision to own a car is made, unless you have it on a lease that includes servicing and insurance.

Several billion pounds. Resetting it to 2010 levels plus inflation (politically impossible of course) would be worth £15-£20 billion. It wouldn't all go on rail fares, of course.

Even a small proportion of that could make a significant difference to fares affordability.

 

[Taunton]

In reality most people consider fixed costs (purchase and servicing as well as non-mileage-based repairs, tax and insurance) to be the cost of membership of the "I own a car" club. The variable costs are mostly just fuel and a small amount for brake and tyre replacement.

Insurance and servicing can technically vary by mileage but they don't significantly for most users up to average-ish mileages.

It's a fallacy to suggest that a per-mile model is the only one that should be applied as a comparison. Do people work out Railcards on a per mile basis? I bet most don't.

That is indeed how it is. Firstly the majority of my car journeys are quite impractical by rail, to and from points nowhere near the network. Secondly having a car (and indeed the skill to drive it) is part of overall life, provided for my family, like having a house for us all. If you go into a detailed accountants' breakdown then nobody would have children.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with railway staff themselves, who need to get to work before meaningful public transport starts, or return home after it finishes. So they go to/fro by their own car.

 

[Haywain]

Nowhere is this more apparent than with railway staff themselves, who need to get to work before meaningful public transport starts, or return home after it finishes. So they go to/fro by their own car.

That is the case for some railway staff but there are many who do not own and have no need for a car.

 

[yorksrob]

Nowhere is this more apparent than with railway staff themselves, who need to get to work before meaningful public transport starts, or return home after it finishes. So they go to/fro by their own car.

It stands to reason that if you're running the train you have to be their in time to run it !

 

[The exile]

Perhaps, but the 'motorist block' is a huge proportion of the voting population. Far greater than the 'train passenger block'.

In fact, because most of what we buy comes by road - it’s near as makes no difference all of us!

 

[saismee]

Do people work out Railcards on a per mile basis? I bet most don't.

More on a "am I going to make at least two small journeys with this within a year" basis, as that's all it takes for it to become worthwhile.

Can someone explain why subsidies seem to be considered to be the "worst-case" option for reducing fare prices? From what I've heard from people living in Brisbane, Australia, their train fares are 50 cents between any two stations on their network and it's funded by high taxes on the coal industry. The media and Liberal/right wing party make this out to be evil, but it's reducing their reliance on coal and making travel effectively free on their network. Everything I've heard from people who actually use the trains say it's great when travelling with a group or to an event that's easily accessible from a station. I've also heard that they intended to make the service free but they still need usage metrics so 50 cents is reasonable enough. I appreciate that their trains act more as a metro than the UK's rail network and we don't exactly have a coal industry to tax, but surely there's a solution to this. One big upside is that you can almost entirely remove revenue protection roles (at the gateline, and on trains) and greatly cut down the prosecutions department... I'm sure that'd save a decent chunk, but obviously not more than they currently bring in.

Is it just that the average taxpayer sees "tax increase" and gets sour? Do people not see the benefit of having a publicly accessible train network?